Thursday, June 26, 2014

Our Family Is Forever - Family Reunion 2014~

We believe that Families are forever. We want to be with our family throughout all Eternity. We want "No Empty Chairs" at our family moments together. We just held our Roger and LeAnn Williams family reunion in Bear Lake, Utah. We have these reunions every two years. We had a wonderful cabin home that we stayed in that would sleep 45. We also had a smaller place for one of our families that couldn't stay for the whole reunion time. When we were all together there were 50 total. We had all our sons, daughters and spouses plus 31 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren. We had one grandson missing that is presently serving a mission for our church in Omaha, Nebraska. While we were having fun he was busy helping to clean up areas affected by the Tornado's.

The weather at Bear Lake was cold. It rained a little bit and in the canyon there was a touch of snow on one of the days. We were concerned about not being able to do lake activities as planned. Our question was how do we keep 8 families with different ages busy inside of the cabin??? We were a little nervous about how it was going to turn out. There were prayers sent and we went forth with faith that all would be well. Our prayers were answered and we had such a fun time. There were no really big conflicts at all. There was just a lot of patience, tolerance, kindness, sharing, love and hugs that went around

Here is a picture of all of our granddaughters, granddaughter in laws and great granddaughters Back row - Justice, age 18 with our youngest granddaughter, Haven, age 6 month; April, age 15, Sariah, age 16; Gillian, age 22; Jessica, and Dana.Middle row - Averi, age 11; Alyssa, age 10; Karli, age 11; Lilly, age 2; our and her sister, Jadyn, age 4. These two are our great granddaughters.Front row - Faith, age 10; Kaitlyn, age 10; Sarah, age 13; Taylor Jo, age 13 with Emma, age 7; Abbey, age 13.

Here are our grandsons, and great grandsons.

Back row - Christian, age 15, Joseph, age 15, Jed, Jacob, with Sagan our great grandson, age 1; Austin, age 15. Middle back row - Jeffery, age 8; Ethan, age 13; Michael, age 14.

From the front room windows of the cabin, the view was spectacular. We even got a picture of a rainbow in the upper left hand corner.

The home we were in had a pool table and plenty of games. The weather was good enough to swim in the heated pool and play basketball that was on the reserve's property. It was so much fun to see the older boys playing pool with the younger kids. Most of the children went down swimming each day and sometimes twice a day.

Along with activities inside and out side, we had family devotionals. We sang songs, and shared stories of our ancestors.

There was plenty of visiting with one another and that went very well. The adults and children also played games. In the lower left hand corner I am playing a game with my granddaughter Emma. She was so cute. She would come up to me and ask if I was ready for another round of Sorry. How could you ever refuse a sweet request like that.

For one of the devotionals My granddaughters from Missouri sang some songs accompanied by their sister Sariah on the Ukulele -

On Wednesday morning all of the children ages 12 and up traveled to the Logan Temple, in Logan, Utah to do baptisms for the dead. I had spent some time doing genealogy research and found some names of ancestors for them to be baptized and confirmed for. To find out more of our beliefs on temple work you can find it here.

One of the really fun activities for the girls was when they braided each other's hair. It was so fun to watch them. They had such a good time doing this.

We had assigned families doing the meals. Everyone even the younger children helped. We also watched some of the World Soccer games. A lot of the children play soccer so they liked watching the games. There were 4 TV's so the children did watch a few movies while there.

Saying good by to everyone was hard. We shared lots of love and hugs~

We had a large porch and a great view of the other cabins in the area. Also, a beautiful view of the lake. As we left the cabin we took a few more pictures of the view. We enjoyed all the precious moments with each other. It was a super family reunion.

Just before we left the cabin we all sang again one our our favorite hymns; "Families Can Be Together Forever. " We then knelt in prayer with gratitude in our hearts for this family time together and then prayers for safety in traveling to our various destinations. Our families came from Spokane, Washington; Peculiar, Missouri; Kerrville, Texas; Idaho Falls, Idaho; Sugar City, Idaho; Heber City, Utah; and South Jordan, Utah.

After we were all packed up and were ready to roll; we drove down to Garden City to enjoy lunch and have one of the famous Raspberry shakes from there. It was funny because this wasn't planned; we met three of our families down at this place. It required some more good-by hugs!

Our three youngest daughter's came back to our house for a couple more days; so the fun didn't end there at Bear Lake. They have now all left for their homes. My oldest daughter who has been with us for the last 6 weeks is moving to Australia for 2-3 years or longer. We had some sweet moments together. All of the good-bys were hard because these dear daughters live the furthest away from us so we don't see them as often as our boys.

Alyssa, Emma and Ben looking for a snack to take while traveling home~

Mike and Jenni with the three children inside the car~

Dave and Tiffani and children packing up and ready to roll~

Our daughter, Christina with her family and my husband Roger~

Here I am with my precious granddaughters and daughter~

Hugs from my son in law Brandon~

Hugs with my dear daughter, Christina~

I was a basket case of tears as each of these dear families left~

We believe in Families forever - If you want to learn more about these beliefs you can find the answers here.

Families are wonderful and yours certainly is. You have an amazing posterity and they are so blessed by you and your husband. It sounds like you all had a delightful time and made memories that will last a life time. Memories that you daughter will carry with her to Australia. I love how you were able to put the pictures together. Do you need a special program to do that? I'd like to learn how. Thanks for sharing your special family reunion. Nola

How fun to read about your family reunion! What a perfect place! I would love to get more info as we are so large as a family too. It would be fun to stay under one roof. I am amazed at how organized you are. And the pictures are beautiful! Thanks for sharing! Melody